New surveillance laws must have full public debate, say top UK academics

New snooping powers must be debated fully by parliament, say researchers.

A group of 35 top academics have published an open letter calling on the UK government to ensure "the Rule of Law and the democratic process is respected as UK surveillance law is revised." This comes in response to the UK government previously turning to draft "Codes of Practice" and "clarifying amendments" to extend its surveillance powers, rather than using primary legislation that is subject to full parliamentary and public debate. Interestingly, the letter includes signatories both for and against such extensions, working in the fields of law, media, policy, and technology.

The letter cites three occasions when the UK government has chosen opaque means to bring in new powers. The first was in July last year, when the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (DRIPA) was passed. As another open letter at the time pointed out, the UK government's claims that this was simply re-affirming powers already in force under the European Data Retention Directive, which had just been ruled invalid, were untrue. Based on that mischaracterisation, the legislation was rushed through without proper debate.

Earlier this year, the Home Office published its draft Equipment Interference Code of Practice. Despite the rather innocuous title, it was anything but, as the new open letter explains: "The draft Code was the first time the intelligence services openly sought specific authorisation to hack computers both within and outside the UK." By issuing the proposals as a "Code of Practice," the UK government evaded a full public debate, even though the new framework "threatens the security of all internet services as the tools intelligence services use to hack can create or maintain security vulnerabilities that may be used by criminals to commit criminal acts and other governments to invade our privacy."

Finally, the academics point to the recently revealed case of the UK government quietly re-writing laws to give GCHQ and others immunity from prosecution if they break into computer systems. By hiding the true purpose of the amendment, the authorities were once again able to avoid any real scrutiny.

Further Reading

The letter notes that we can expect at least two major projects to change UK surveillance in the near future: the re-introduction of the "Snooper's Charter"; and a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000, the main legislation that governs UK surveillance activities that is now hopelessly out of date. The signatories to the letter call for those and any other change to the UK’s surveillance powers to be made through "primary legislation and clearly and accurately described in the explanatory notes of any Bill," not slipped in secretly through the backdoor like one of the UK government's much-demonised illegal immigrants.